Tour de Fleece continues

It's gotten to the point where I'm being a little ridiculous about this Tour de Fleece thing. I'm going to be out of town from tomorrow through the end of the race, so basically today is the last day I can work on this. Now, I'm selling my house, buying a new house, working full time, running a business, and generally freaking out, all more important than some silly blog contest (except maybe the freaking out). Yet it really bothers me that there's a good chance I will fail. Part of it is because of that big f-word FAIL, and calling it "not succeed" isn't fooling anyone; part of it is because it's so public; and I've come to realize that part of it is that the goal was so small. I caught myself thinking that at least the Yarn Harlot will have a noble fail: nobody could possibly spin three-plus pounds of yarn in this time, whereas my failure will be utterly pathetic and inexcusable. Aha! This may be the key to my goal-setting issues: if I set a goal that's impossible and then don't achieve it, I'm kind of like, "eh, nobody could do that--why did I think I could?" and move on. But this goal is so possible. Basically I gave myself several weeks to spin two ounces of fiber. That's about two sessions' worth for me. Yes, I had to learn a new technique, so that took an extra session. So basically several weeks to do three days' spinning, and I still might not make it! Furthermore, my meta-goal in setting such a low goal was to experience setting a low enough goal that I could actually achieve it, so if I fail the main goal, I actually fail on two different levels.
I'm trying to console myself with "see, at least you learned something about yourself." There really is no hope if I don't finish it tonight--regarding the lunatic Mission Impossible spindle backup plan, there is no way I could do this with a spindle. I need both hands for the yarn. Hmm... well maybe some kind of silly park-and-ply process... no! No! Try to be rational here, Cara! Get a grip!
Anyway, I did work on this a little this morning. I decided to go ahead and do the Navajo plying on the singles I already spun from this roving last weekend during the mad thunderstorm. I knew that yarn was pretty uneven and crappy, so if I screwed up the plying, it's not like I did it to really good yarn. I had some problems with the yarn breaking, very annoying, but generally it went ok.


As you can see, it came off the bobbin pretty darn twisty. Yet the amount of twist in the plying looked right. I can't explain this, it just looked like it should be balanced, and I knew the singles were probably tired from spending the week on the bobbin and watching me clean the house like a madwoman all weekend, so I ignored their opinion on twist just did what I thought they needed.
A little dip in some warm water, and voila! It looks like I was right.


Or possibly when it dries, it will all coil back up into its former spoingy madness state. Whatever, I'm planning to crochet this yarn anyway, so it really doesn't matter if it's balanced. Meanwhile it is pretty, although it's a bit ironic that I've gone to so much trouble to Navajo-ply these singles when they're all purple anyway. The roving does change colors eventually, but in retrospect, of all rovings on the planet, this is probably the one where Navajo plying is least likely to buy me anything--the color changes are so few and so slow, the regular trick of splitting the roving lengthwise and plying the two halves almost certainly would have worked really well. Oh well, I learned a new technique, had some personal growth, and made pretty yarn. It's time to quit complaining.